By: Megan Crewe
288 pages
Published: February 12, 2013 by Disney Hyperion
(Goodreads / Amazon
/ Book Depository)Source: Won hardback copy during Armchair BEA 2013
Summary:
First, the virus took Kaelyn’s friends. Then, her family. Now it’s taken away her home.MY REVIEW:
But she can't look back—the life she once had is gone forever.
A deadly virus has destroyed Kaelyn’s small island community and spread beyond the quarantine. No one is safe. But when Kaelyn finds samples of a vaccine in her father's abandoned lab, she knows there must be someone, somewhere, who can replicate it. As Kaelyn and her friends head to the mainland, they encounter a world beyond recognition. It’s not only the “friendly flu” that’s a killer—there are people who will stop at nothing to get their hands on the vaccine. How much will Kaelyn risk for an unproven cure, when the search could either destroy those she loves or save the human race?
Megan Crewe's second volume in the Fallen World trilogy is an action-packed journey that explores the resilience of friendship, the ache of lost love, and Kaelyn’s enduring hope in the face of the sacrifices she must make to stay alive.
Book 2 picks up where book one leaves us, Kaelyn still surviving with her 7 year old cousin Meredith, her new friend Tessa and boyfriend Gav, all of them trying to care for others on their island as best as they can. Upon finding viles of a potential vaccine with notes in her Dad's lab she decides if anyone is going to find someone to help recreate the vaccine it's got to be her. With nothing left of her home on the island they all set out on this journey. They face dangers of nature since it's winter time in Canada, as well as dangers of strangers, people who are struggling to survive like they are and are willing to do whatever they have to to take what you might have if it would mean their own survival. They can't trust many people with the secret of the vaccine but word spreads fast and soon there are those who are intent at getting it no matter the cost. Don't forget about the illness, it's still rampant and those who are not immune are susceptible to getting it. This group of teenagers are literally humanity's last effort at a cure.
As with book one, I enjoyed this story but it falls in the average category for me. Average isn't bad, as it still leaves me wanting to read book 3 to find out what happens next. But there wasn't anything to pull me deeply in, to connect strongly with the characters. Thankfully the journal style of writing stops with this book. That was one thing I strongly disliked about book 1.
The Lives We Lost is about a group of teenagers who are having to learn a new way of life in the midst of this plague, all based on survival. The cliques that existed before don't matter any more. Who they were, or how they might've treated one another because of being in different circles doesn't matter. What matters is being alive and trying to do more than just survive. Forming new relationships and caring for others. Those are the things that matter.
Favorite Quote:
Maybe I hadn't found what I'd hoped for, maybe the world was horribly messed up and would never again be the way it used to be. But the people in it were still worth fighting for. We hadn't lost everything.
Final Rating - 3.5 stars.
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